In an image, an object can have a partial appearance as part of the image. For instance, the object may be occluded by other objects or background in the image. For example, the full appearance of an animal may be blocked by grasses, shrubs, or other items in the environmental setting in which the animal is located in the image. In another scenario, there can be objects on the boundary of an image with partial appearance due to the limits of the field of view of the sensors. In an image of a collision between a car and a bicycle, the image may include a front end of the car and a back end of the bicycle such that there is only a partial appearance of the car and the bicycle. With such partial appearances, a recognition system may have difficulty in determining the object in an image submitted to the recognition system. In addition to partial appearances, a distorted object in an image or an object with a pose different from alignment with an axis of the image, may present difficulties for the recognition system. A pose of an object in an image is a relative position/orientation of the object with respect to a predefined identity pose and representing its relationship to other objects or background in the image.